Famous Quotes & Sayings

Arthur Conan Doyle

There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion," said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. "It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.

Arthur Koestler

Zen is to religion what a Japanese "rock garden" is to a garden. Zen knows no god, no afterlife, no good and no evil, as the rock-garden knows no flowers, herbs or shrubs. It has no doctrine or holy writ: its teaching is transmitted mainly in the form of parables as ambiguous as the pebbles in the rock-garden which symbolise now a mountain, now a fleeting tiger. When a disciple asks "What is Zen?", the master's traditional answer is "Three pounds of flax" or "A decaying noodle" or "A toilet stick" or a whack on the pupil's head.

Jane Austen

Dear Diary, Today I tried not to think about Mr. Knightly. I tried not to think about him when I discussed the menu with Cook... I tried not to think about him in the garden where I thrice plucked the petals off a daisy to acertain his feelings for Harriet. I don't think we should keep daisies in the garden, they really are a drab little flower. And I tried not to think about him when I went to bed, but something had to be done.

Edward Ruscha

When I began painting, all my paintings were of words which were gutteral utterances like Smash, Boss, Eat. Those words were like flowers in a vase.

Dustin Hoffman

God knows I've done enough crap in my life to grow a few flowers.

Andrew Mason

If dandelions were hard to grow, they would be most welcome on any lawn.

Alexander Pope

The flower's are gone when the Fruits appear to ripen.

Amos Bronson Alcott

Modesty, that perennial flower planted instinctively in the human breast, blooms therein only as continence guards and virtue keeps.

Corita Kent

Flowers grow out of dark moments.

Diane Ackerman

Because we can't escape our ancient hunger to live close to nature, we encircle the house with lawns and gardens, install picture windows, adopt pets and Boston ferns, and scent everything that touches our lives.

Diane Ackerman

[On gardens:] I think they're sanctuaries for the mind and spirit. ... It's easy to feel wonder-struck in a garden, especially if you cultivate delight.

Cory Doctorow

Each generation of rabbis is necessarily less perfect than the rabbis that came before, since each generation is more removed from the perfection of the Garden. Therefore, no rabbi is allowed to overturn any of his forebears' wisdom, since they are all, by definition, smarter than him.

David Attenborough

Do we really require so many gardening programmes, makeover programmes or celebrity chefs?

Robert Frost

We can make a little order where we are, and then the big sweep of history on which we can have no effect doesn't overwhelm us. We do it with colors, with a garden, with the furnishings of a room, or with sounds and words. We make a little form, and we gain composure.

Thomas Jefferson

I have often thought that if heaven had given me choice of my position and calling, it should have been on a rich spot of earth, well watered, and near a good market for the productions of the garden. No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden. Such a variety of subjects, some one always coming to perfection, the failure of one thing repaired by the success of another, and instead of one harvest a continued one through the year.

Tom Turner

Garden design theory explains, or should explain, the 'What, Where, Why and How' of making gardens.

Russell Page

My pre-occupation is with the relationship between objects, whether I am dealing with woods, fields or water, rocks or trees, shrubs and plants, or groups of plants.

Russell Page

Garden making, like gardening itself, concerns the relationship of the human being to his natural surroundings.

Buster Keaton

If one more person tells me this is just like old times, I swear I'll jump out the window.

Diane Ackerman

There's no place you can go on the prairie that you don't hear the white noise of the wind, steady and rough as surf curling along a non-existant shore.

Barack Obama

I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.

Bruce Chatwin

I climbed a path and from the top looked up-stream towards Chile. I could see the river, glinting and sliding through the bone-white cliffs with strips of emerald cultivation either side. Away from the cliffs was the desert. There was no sound but the wind, whirring through thorns and whistling through dead grass, and no other sign of life but a hawk, and a black beetle easing over white stones.

David J. C. MacKay

We must not let ourselves be swept off our feet in horror at the danger of nuclear power. Nuclear power is not infinitely dangerous. It's just dangerous, much as coal mines, petrol repositories, fossil-fuel burning and wind turbines are dangerous.

Dolly Parton

My favorite movies of all times is 'Doctor Zhivago,' and I love 'Gone With the Wind.' I'd love to play some Southern belle or something where I owned a plantation.

Dick Powell

Without individuals feeling safe and having an environment of safety, they then have reluctance of taking part in the city of being active. They wind up wanting to leave the city. Thats more detrimental.

Derek Walcott

Damn wind shift sudden as a woman mind.

Chuck Close

There are things about signing on to a process over the long term that protect you from the buffeting winds of change.